


I have been to heaven and still have no place to stay

by peepasoo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canon-ish, F/M, Loss, dont read if u haven’t seen it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 08:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14565177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peepasoo/pseuds/peepasoo
Summary: How did they end up here again? She lives the same lives over and over again, fights the same fight until her hands are washed red.And just when she believes it’s over, back into it she gets pulled.Valkyrie wishes she had a drink.(Or maybe just a better place to die)or: a not-so-au of the beginning of infinity war (spoilers obviously)[title from: “LAMENTATION (Black Jesus Remix)” by Julian Randall]





	I have been to heaven and still have no place to stay

**Author's Note:**

> hey so quick au ish maybe not of where the hell valkyrie is in the beginning of iw bc they didn’t explain it and I’m a valkyrie hoe so I wrote this!!!!!   
> (one of the russos said in a q&a that she escaped w the refugees so clink clink) 
> 
> also infinity war spoilers duh 
> 
> p.s. written @ 2am and v minimal edits today so sorry if it doesn’t make sense kids

“Have you noticed,” Thor starts to tell Valkyrie one day in the control bay, “how quiet it’s been?” 

 

“I try not to,” she says over the  _ shing _ of rod sharpening her blade, “don’t want to ruin it by noticing,” she finishes patly. 

 

Thor crosses his arms, uneasiness sits heavy in his stomach. He watches Valkyrie’s shoulder blades move as she pulls back the blade, he quite likes the contraction of her muscles under her skin, like he could pick out each one and name them. Even that doesn’t make him feel better, though (well, not  _ completely _ ). 

 

“You’re ruining it,” she says suddenly.

 

His speech staggers, “Pfft, no I’m not, if anything  _ you  _ are, by noticing  _ me  _ noticing it!” 

 

“Right,” she draws out, turning back to look at him with a small grin, “you are  _ totally _ ruining it, Thunderlord.” 

 

He smiles at her, then she says, “I hope this is it,” 

 

“This is what,” he asks. 

 

“The one time we win, and, I don’t know, win for  _ good _ ,” her voice got small at the end, ashamed of saying it. 

 

Thor didn’t say it, but he hoped so too, hoped  _ so badly  _ Fate would let this be it. Because haven’t they all suffered enough, the people especially, who never chose the life he and Valkyrie did?

 

“Don’t ruin it by noticing,” Thor chances at humor, though it was hard, in this light. 

 

He wonders what their lives would be like if this  _ was  _ it. Futures spread before him in the stars the ship races past. It almost startles him that in every one he imagined right then, Valkyrie was in each one. 

This thought crowds his head with its implications. 

(Who was he to even  _ assume _ she wanted a future with him? Why does he want one with her, anyway? Ok so that one is easy. But, still he has known her for  _ four weeks,  _ this can’t be—) 

 

Both their wrist communicators (picked up from Xandar) beep with messages. 

 

“Heimdall. You?” Thor asks her, he leaves out the EMERGENCY which followed Heimdall’s message. 

 

“The main bridge, getting the people in order. What is this?” Valkyrie asks. 

 

He isn’t sure, but he feels they might have ruined it. 

 

***

 

“What the hell is going on?” Thor bursts into the sit. room. 

 

“Unidentified craft came up on our radar, it appears it is hostile,” Loki tells him in a short voice. Blue light from the screens illuminated his pacing form. 

 

“How can you tell?” Thor asks 

 

“It’s Thanos,” Heimdall says, like he announced the end of days, which he kind of did. 

 

Initially he panics, “The people—”

 

“Valkyrie and Korg are getting them all together, we are preparing for some sort of transport,” Heimdall says.  

 

“How long do we have?” Thor asks, heart rate increasing, he can feel his pulse in his missing eye. 

 

“Twenty minutes, tops,” Loki answered. 

 

Twenty minutes, they could do a lot in that time. 

 

The ship rocks, a high pitched frequency fills the air. 

 

“Okay, so maybe more like ten,” Loki says. 

 

“What just happened, are they here?” Thor asks. 

 

“They have latched on to us, put us in a magnetic hold,” Heimdall explains, furiously pressing buttons on screens. 

 

Thor considered the options, “Send out a distress signal, we have to get the people out of here,” 

 

***

 

He almost runs into Valkyrie, bolting up to the bridge. 

 

“I was coming to find you,” she says breathless, “Korg and the first transport are on one of the secondary vessels,”

 

He almost asked why she wasn’t on it with them. Stupid of him to expect anything less than a fight from her. 

 

“Headed where?” He says instead. 

 

“Anywhere besides here. What are we dealing with,” the ship rocks again, they can hear people scream on the bridge. 

 

“Thanos,” Thor tries not to let his heart skip when he says it, pretends this is something they can deal with, because maybe it is. 

(he knows it’s not) 

 

“If we aren’t going to go, we have to prepare to fight,” Loki says, coming up from behind him. 

 

“Kind of wish you didn’t say anything,” Valkyrie says to Thor, smiling despite this all. (She lives in this fight, it beats desperately in her heart)

 

“Kind of think I was right, though,” he says, attempting her reckless courage, starting after Loki. 

 

He hears her laugh after him, Thor hopes he’ll hear it again. 

 

***

 

How did they end up here again? She lives the same lives over and over again, fights the same fight until her hands are washed red. 

 

And just when she believes it’s over, back into it she gets pulled. 

 

Valkyrie wishes she had a drink. 

(Or maybe just a better place to die) 

 

Only two out of four transports were able to take off so far. The last one was being filled (the  _ Commodore _ , she almost laughs at the image) as they fight. 

 

Realistically, they only had enough people to fill this third ship, all the others had died. 

(It sits wrong in her, the blatant destruction of all their efforts, like the universe was laughing at them)

 

A slice to her forearm brings her actions back the front of her mind. The horned lady sneers in her face. 

 

She cut the arm that was wielding her sword.  _ Fuck.  _ Valkyrie caught a glimpse of the iridescent metal a meter away. 

 

Just as she is about to throw a kick to her legs, a large  _ whack _ takes the horned lady out of her line of sight and replaces her with Heimdall. 

 

“Come on, Valkyrie, we have work to do,” he says 

 

She grabs her blade, wonders if the fight will ever be over for her. 

(A part of her hopes it won’t) 

 

Once they catch up to Thor, Loki, and Hulk she throws her knife into the back of whatever had Thor pinned to the floor at the moment. 

 

“Got you,” she said, yanking him up. 

 

“You have to go,” he is out of breath, covered in dirt and blood again, her heart aches and she doesn’t know why. 

 

“If you think I’m leaving, Thunderlord—” maybe she didn’t fully grasp the weight of what was happening but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still fight. 

 

“ _ Valkyrie _ ,” her name, begged off his lips, cuts her off. Thor is afraid, honestly and truly. 

 

“No!” she says firmly, how could she possibly leave, she was supposed to protect  _ him _ . 

 

Lightning sparks off his body all of a sudden and and steps out of the way for the bolt which strikes down the two they just fought. 

 

“He is right,” Heimdall yells to her, “This isn’t your fight,”

 

“Like  _ hell _ it is, you’re the one who dragged me here. You have made it my fight and I’m going to stay for it,” Valkyrie tells them both, really. 

 

Something crashes close to them, Heimdall and Thor share a look, her stomach sinks. 

 

Thor grabs her shoulders unexpectedly, pulls her to face him. 

 

“Valkyrie please, I know you want to stay but if you do you will die and I won’t be able to do anything about it,” the last part stops her preloaded retort in her throat, “there are people on that ship that need you to protect them.  _ Please _ ,” his hands grip firmly into her shoulders. 

She wonders if this is the closest she’ll ever get to him, if what he says is true. 

 

She should go, Valkyrie knows she should. But who the hell would she be if she did? And left him to die here? 

 

Valkyrie considers counting all she has lost, then losing it again. 

 

She wants a better place to die but he  _ deserves  _ one. 

 

“For the record, you said once that all this pain was your fate,” she hopes he remembers the day only a few weeks ago, tinged with some stupid bliss after Asgard, he’d told her this under the light of the passing stars outside his quarter’s window, “I don’t think it is. I think it’s something much happier than that,” she tells him honestly. 

 

“Prove it to me, yeah? When this is all over,” he sounds like he really needs her to, like he doesn’t believe it. 

 

_ Gods she hopes she gets the chance.  _

 

“We have to make it out alive first,” she says. 

 

He nods, she wants to cry. 

 

Large footsteps approach, he lets go of her. 

 

If she goes it has to be now. 

 

She begins to walk away, “Okay, I’m going, you’ll find us, after?” It’s a question that asks everything,  _ will you survive? Will I see you again? Is what we are dealing with really the end of the universe?  _

 

Thor nods, not looking away from her. It’s the kind of look that sees her and every face she ever made at him, the kind that stores them away deep in his mind, it makes her stomach sick. 

 

“Don’t die, Your Majesty,” Valkyrie says, “you know what I mean,” 

 

_ I mean you’ll see me again, I mean you better not fucking die, I mean there are so many more thing I want to know about you, I mean we have already survived the end of our world so what is one more, I mean this is the closest to forgiving myself I’ve ever got, I mean goodbye but not quite.  _

 

She turns and runs to the ship. 

 

***

 

Thor wonders if there is a place somewhere that’s like heaven. 

Only he thought he was there and it wasn’t heaven at all. Just a golden sham. 

 

“Thanos is just the latest in a long line of bastards and he will be the latest to feel my vengeance,” he tells Rocket. 

 

Funny, Thor doesn’t remember every being a vengeful person. But he can’t really remember anything but this buzz at the back of his throat and the heavy feeling in his hands. 

 

“And what if you’re wrong?” he asks Thor.  

 

His heart is pulled out raw, tender stitches ripped and scars reopened. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to take any more loss. 

 

“Well if I’m wrong, What more could I lose?” he asks, knowing the answer. 

 

“The ones who got away, you said some escaped,” 

 

Thor must have mentioned that, he can’t remember when. 

 

His throat is tight, he thinks of Valkyrie, wishes they could be somewhere else, wishes none of this were true. 

He wishes most of all he could contact her and tell her he’s alive, and hear she is alive too. 

(Because he needs to hear it from her, to hear her voice in his ears) 

 

“That’s a some _ one _ face isn’t it?” Rocket asks. 

Thor was right, he is the smartest of them. 

 

“We had better hope I’m right then, shouldn’t we?” The truth is told better this way, raw and fresh, unwittingly right under the surface. 

 

Half the universe dead if he’s wrong, those are their odds. 

Thor isn’t feeling very lucky. 

 

_ I think it’s something much happier than that.  _

 

He hopes she’s right.    
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank u evie for screaming w me about this and them, our convos are constant muses!!!! 
> 
> Anyway I’m bitter and Thor is so fucking tragic and god I love valkyrie anyway kudos/bookmark/comment if u cried 
> 
> @ridleyboyegas on tumblr


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